1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of sound effect control for musical instruments.
More specifically, the present invention aims to facilitate digital control of sound effects of a musical instrument for musicians.
The present invention therefore has several useful applications in the field of music, particularly for controlling the sound effects of a musical instrument such as a guitar. Evidently, other useful applications may also be conceived by using the digital control proposed herein according to the present invention.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronics and computer software now hold a central place in the field of music production: indeed, electronics and computer software enable the transformation and/or synthesis of new sounds to enrich musical compositions. The present description entirely focuses on sound effects. Purely illustrative and non-restrictive examples include effects such as “fading”, audio filtering, echo, or the creation of a synthetic/electronic sound or reading a sound from a predetermined sound bank, etc.
However, the possibilities for a musician to physical interact with electronic and computer software interfaces to control these sound effects often remain incompatible with those offered by physical musical instruments. As such, using such interfaces can often actually compromise the musical performance itself.
These control interfaces generally comprise a mouse, a keyboard and a screen (sometimes tactile) one or several potentiometers, or one or several pedals, etc.
The Applicant observes that such interfaces are difficult for a musician using their hands and/or feet to play their instrument to manipulate: a guitarist has one hand on the neck of their guitar and their other hand occupied strumming the strings; a pianist generally has both hands on the piano keys and their feet engaged in operating the pedals; a Disc Jockey has one hand on the vinyl disc and the other on the crossfader of their mixing table.
Studying these interfaces more closely, we can currently distinguish several techniques which enable musicians to control sound effects: use of manual controls, foot controls, mouth controls or the use of vocoders.
Manual control interfaces are one of the most common solutions for controlling sound effects: yet these interfaces usually enable the user to independently control only one parameter at a time; these manually activated interfaces are moreover not particularly accessible to musicians such as guitarists, whose hands are occupied playing their instrument. As such, these interfaces are generally only used to modify sound loops which have already been recorded and/or to set the sound before playing.
Use of foot-controlled interfaces (or a pedal) is another classic way to control sound effects. However, when using a pedal, as when using a manual controller, it is only possible to control one parameter at a time. Moreover, when using a pedal, the musician cannot move around on stage as they would like to. Furthermore, using a pedal is difficult for both spatial and temporal precision: it requires both dexterity and a lot of practice.
Alternatively, there are certain interfaces which enable sound effect control using the mouth: this is known as the “talk box”. More specifically, the talk box is a device which enables amplified sounds to be modified using the mouth.
This device is in the form of a tube which the musician places in their mouth. This tube consists of a pipe in which the sound produced by a guitar, for example, is disseminated. The tube is thus connected to a funnel located opposite the loudspeaker of the guitar. As such, when the musician plays, the sound travels up the tube to their mouth, where it is then adjusted by the variable openings of the mouth; the form of the mouth cavity, and the position of the mouth and/or lips of the musician. The guitar therefore “speaks” according to the musician's mouth cavity. The microphone then captures the sound.
The disadvantages of such controller are numerous: beyond the unaesthetic appearance of this device, which requires keeping a tube in the mouth, such device only enables the control of one type of effect: acoustic filtering using the mouth.
The Applicant moreover argues that such device is not popular among many musicians.
Among existing sound effect controllers, there is the vocoder. The vocoder is an electronic sound signal processing device which analyses the main spectral components of a voice or another sound, and which makes a synthetic sound from such analysis.
The disadvantages of the vocoder are numerous: such a system only enables the control of one type of effect, filtering via spectral envelopment of the sound emitted by the mouth. Moreover, where the background acoustic sound is used, such system is sensitive to background noise.
As such, the Applicant argues that the prior art identified hereabove does not provide satisfactory solutions to enable musicians to easily and effectively control the sound effects of a musical instrument. Indeed, none of the approaches proposed in the prior art enables precise and easy control of several sound effects simultaneously while enabling the musician to move around freely (on stage, for example).